>>2749449Don't bring your camera on the rafting part. Leave it in the car. They always have a photographer to take pictures of you and they sell you the photos afterwards for 30 bucks.
>>2749447>14 poundsproblem is I already carry a ton of water and extra clothes as is
it was just blowdown after blowdown, the locals said there had been lots of storms lately, so maybe it was that, but I didn't see any evidence of clearing prior blowdowns or any sort of trail maintenance.
No markers, no signs except a faded cardboard "no motorized vehicles"
it wasn't just the blowdowns, there was tons of walking through rock beds, it was decently steep until you got to the main haul road (there was like a vertical connector road).
I am not sure of the actual land use there. It's state game lands, but I assume at one point it was a logging railroad and maybe was abandoned in the 1960s or 1970s. But whether it has been cleared since then, I'm not sure. There was a faint foot trail through parts of it, people do use it, but it's just a massive obstacle course, and I got exhausted after hours of it and turned around.
There's also just trying to go up the side of the hill directly tracing the course of the intermittent run that falls down the hillside. I'm not sure if its doable, but I have a gpx track for doing it, others have definitely done it before, but doing that adds a wet crossing of a wide creek. But it does take the mileage down from 6 to 2 if you scramble the hill up at the nearest point to the vista.
Here's the hill, the vista is on the left side.
